An Exhibit That Brought Me To Tears

Carnegie Museum and the 'WE ARE NATURE, Living in the Anthropocene' Exhibit

The previous day I had planned to visit the Carnegie Museum but it being a Tuesday they were closed. Upon waking this morning I decided today would be the day. I looked up their hours and they happened to have half off their final two hours of being opened, so I decided to do that thinking it would be enough time. Let me tell you now before getting to the good stuff, two hours is not, I repeat NOT,  enough time to absorb and see the Carnegie Museum! This is an all day adventure. Anyway... I saw that they had an exhibit going on called the 'WE ARE NATURE, Living in the Anthropocene'. Only the other day I had learned what Anthropocene was; We have been living in the geological Holocene Era and now it is being proposed that we have now entered the Antropocene Era (Carnegie 'WE ARE NATURE, Living in the Anthropocene'). Anthropocene is "the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological age" (merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Anthropocene).

I was highly interested in what this exhibit had to offer, I did not know that it would saturate me with such intense emotions.

Upon entering you are asked this first question. My gears begin to turn and my heart begins to race. I started to realize what I was about to walk into...

This is what is a model of Plastiglomerate. You know when you look at the geological layers of the planet and it is like a timetable of the past? You can find fossils, various minerals, etc. Well this is what is what we will find in the future. Plastic doesn't biodegrade... They are the fossils of the future.

The next room a display that really struck a cord in my heart was about clean water. Having just returned from places that you can't drink the tap water, you had to purchase clean water made this more real. Pollution is making clean water more and more scarce. This means access to it will be just become even more costly than ever, dividing the rich and poor even more, along with many more trickling effects accompany it.

Turning the corner I found this and my eyes began to well up. It is predicted by 2050 that the Great Barrier Reef will be dead! DO YOU HEAR THAT?! DEAD! This is the home to over 10,000 species and that's not just aquatic life. The Great Barrier Reef and any other reef dying means that we kill many other species along with it and put us that much closer to a fate unknown but doesn't look very bright.

Here is when the tears began to flow. I was unable to look away, in disbelief that this was a bet. I know it's not a bet to see who gets it right but still... This was displayed next to the DoDo Bird, a bird that only took humans eighty years to wipe off the face of the earth upon discovery, with only the comment being that "it was a stupid bird"! How can a bird never encountering humans before know that they were meeting their demise?! Now we have these six displayed here that are barely holding onto existence and we all know they aren't they only six that are on that fine line of being the last few of their kind before they are nothing but a memory in our minds, photographs, and text.

Environmental studies is something I have spent hours and hours studying in school and at home. So, yes you can argue extinction is something that has happened since living organism have been a thing. The difference between the natural process of extinction and now is that humans have sped this process up 100s and in some cases 100,000s of times quicker then it has ever taken place in the past.

So what do we do? What do I do? Do we just throw in the towel? Do we standup and advocate for our planet that can't speak, but only show us the hurt we have caused her? Do we deny the fact that this is happening? Keep going until we to are extinct from our own wrong doing? There are hundreds of questions around this subject and millions of different "answers".  All that we do know that is that this is real. We have done the damage and it is time to own up to it. Not one person is to blame. We are ALL to blame.

Can we all please stop denying what is boldly put in front of our very own eyes day in and day out?! Can we all please start to do something? ANYTHING?! No matter how big or small. As Dr. Seuss' the Lorax said "UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

Puffy eyed and feeling a whole lot.

Finding Me Wherever I Maybe